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Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 78 - 81 (2000)

Dynamics of Activated Escape and Its Observation in a Semiconductor Laser

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J. Hales1, A. Zhukov2, R. Roy3, and M. I. Dykman2 *
1CREOL, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816
2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824
3Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742

 See Also: Erratum

Received 11 January 2000

We report a direct experimental observation and provide a theory of the distribution of trajectories along which a fluctuating system moves over a potential barrier in escape from a metastable state. The experimental results are obtained for a semiconductor laser with optical feedback. The distribution of paths displays a distinct peak, which shows how the escaping system is most likely to move. We argue that the specific features of this distribution may give an insight into the nature of dropout events in lasers.


©2000 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.78
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.78
PACS: 42.60.Mi, 05.20.-y, 05.40.-a, 42.55.Px

* Email address: dykman@pa.msu.edu

See Also

Erratum: J. Hales, A. Zhukov, R. Roy, and M. I. Dykman, Erratum: Dynamics of Activated Escape and Its Observation in a Semiconductor Laser [Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 78 (2000)], Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5405 (2001)

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